Jacob Zuma Resigns as South African President

President Jacob Zuma resigned on Wednesday, 14th February, 2018 at night following pressure from his political party, the African National Congress (ANC).

He first refused to step down and asked his party to tell him what he had done wrong, but the party scheduled a vote of no confidence in parliament which would have humiliated both him and the party.

As president, Jacob Zuma had the authority to refuse to step down but he would have faced a possibility of losing the vote of no confidence or dividing his party and having a turdy image with the public.

Jacob Zuma paves way for his Deputy President and current leader of the ANC party, Cyril Ramaphosa to succeed him after a vote from parliament.

President Jacob Zuma resigned on Wednesday, 14th February, 2018 at night following pressure from his political party, the African National Congress (ANC). – Newslibre (Image credit The Independent}

Zuma faces numerous charges of corruption, fraud, mismanaging the government and having close ties with the notoriously wealthy and powerful Indian Gupta family.

Zuma in his speech thanked all those that had worked with him and acknowledged that he disagreed with the choice by his party to force him to resign but that he would respect it because he serves the South African people and his political party and would hate to see them divided or lose their lives because of him.

Many South Africans are celebrating his fall, but a few will miss him especially the few contributions he has made such as implementing free higher education for citizens yet he, himself never had the chance or resources to attain education during apartheid led South Africa.

Jacob Zuma was born in 1942 which makes him 75 years old. He joined the ANC in 1959 and later its military wing in 1962 before being arrested in 1963 to serve time alongside Nelson Mandela in Robben Island for conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government.

He became the party chair later and the deputy president of South Africa in 1999 before he was tried for fraud, losing the title but later in April, 2009 charges were dropped and he became the South African president.

Lawrence writes about tech, lifestyle, politics, business, crypto and occasionally entertainment. He writes for Newslibre and Spur Magazine while consulting with numerous international companies on strategy, community management and marketing.

He has contributed to the journalism, open source, film, youth, web, Andela and Mozilla communities.